Icaros native

My whole development is done in Linux hosted, I’m used to it especially because when there is a tool missing in AROS I can use the Linux tools to do it. But the hosted is slow, what is not bad for development but also some bugs does not appear there.
So I tried to install a Icaros 2.03 DVD on an old Computer which is long time not in use anymore (AMD64 X2, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia 7900, e1000 network card) in short a deasaster, it simply does not work at all, it begins to boot, whatever i choose there or in BIOS nothing happens. who knows what wrong there. I have no clue and tried every tip I found in the net.

I got an old Laptop which is laying around long time already, the display is somewhat broken. (Dell Inspirion 640m, Intel Core, 1GB Ram, Intel graphics, Chipset Network). oho finally it works somehow. Even the native graphics and sound is working. So far the good news, bad news follow… and they are really bad. Network does not work at all, both network cards are not supported (also checked in the compatibilty list). I thought on the left side the slit is a old style PCMCIA slot (I have a lot such wireless and wired network cards), haha but I was wrong its an express card slot. So it seems I do not have any chance to bring this laptop to network with AROS 🙁 Maybe with an USB network card, but I don’t have such things and I have no idea which one would work.

nevertheless I decided to install AROS on it, just to play around and „feel“ the speed, migario told me that it should be a lot faster than hosted.
First the installation.. OMFG … ok calm down… the installer self is nice and work as expected good that it only asks at the beginning and then install without any more questions, I like that.
BUT… guys serious the installation time is out of discussion… after a while I just put the laptop to ground and let it run made other things on my desktop computer. It needs HOURS for sure, seems the position on the DVD is not optimized. I noticed already on the startup that the DVD reader head moves like a maniac… a little bit like the 3.5″ disks in the past. Maybe the positions on the DVD should be optimized for faster access.
Why it needs so long… ok first it copies everything from the live DVD to the HD, the HD is ultra fast so thats not the bottle neck (boot up after installation is done in less than 5 seconds).
But this hundrets of very tiny files really slow down it very much. Especially the catalog files for every program and AROS and for AROS68k. this could be optimized a lot… PLEASE only install my language catalog files and english as fallback… PLEASE do not install all catalogs… also on 68k emulation side. (which is useless for me either). Maybe it would be better to move all this little files to a zip folder and unpack them directly onto the harddisk.
This redrawing bugs on the installer and zips unpacking…. looks very bad.. but OK I know them already, missing Zune feature of redrawing window when a dialog or so is open. I struggle with it in LCL as well.

The installation is over… but no hint what to do now.. reboot hmm ok but how (I would prefer the installer asks me directly and do it if I agree)
(and menu quit quits only dopus and not resets the computer, must click on this icaros eye and then choose Exit)

But ok after the installation it boots very fast as stated already. really nice… the sound works wow, even this sample sounds a little bit like disturbed (I checked on linux its in the file).
I tested with Shift_it_GL (which is sadly not included), nice GL acceleration works 🙂 its incredibly fast.

I played around with some of the tools installed. (why the icons on the harddisk are so „unsorted“ some even overlay which each other, and big holes, no clear ordering, especially the SYS: root folder)

Audio evolution: Guys what is that? Program open, asks me for Audio hardware… ok there is only one to choose, and underneath a slider Frequency with no numbers or so, what it does, I have no idea. The program opens… I would like to open an example project to play with it…
„Welcome to Audio evolution!“ the window say, Start new, load, load recent… but the recent is a project in RAM: which is of course not there. Load a project (I would expect it lands in a project folder maybe with example project) but nothing… how bad.. too lazy to search for its folder.

I searched a little bit around (also on the search for freepascal 😛 ) And found it in Extras/Development/Languages/fpc The fp-ide starts and work nicely… BUT seems the pathes in fp.cfg or fpc.cfg are not set properly… it can not find the Exec unit. I’m not sure whats wrong there the units are there the fpc.cfg looks good. maybe later I check again. Compiling from shell works well.

in Development tools is a C IDE, Murks… I also tried this one on startup looks nice (even I do not like this huge icons, but thats only my personal view)
Open project….. ARGH requester in RAM: .. guys..seriously… but I’m really interrested and know where its folder is so navigate to there and hey there are also examples… CHelloWorld.dev 😀 good that is what I’m searching for. Open it main.c in the list, click on click on it, the well known C hello world source… nice, now lets rock, compile it. big fat „Build“ Button. and…. guys… seriously whats that… „gcc: object not found“ …. I even do not found settings to set a path to gcc only project options. Sorry I stop here.

Finally I tested some of my programs especially EdiSyn (transfered with USB stick, worked very nice gratulation to this one). and really the tab open, scrolling and so on is FAAAAAST really nice, even size change with Opaque on looks not so bad, ok it flickers a bit, but the window decoration of the windows (all windows) flickers also like hell, most visible around the close button and scrollbars. So it is not only my problem 😛

As conclusion I would say… it is nice… but needs a lot more polishing, I would prefer less programs better sorted and WORKING, best with set (at least one) recent files, which are there and useable to play.